Welcome back for another installment of So you want to learn German…

Pinterest is actually a pretty powerful tool for organizing ideas, collecting thoughts and saving things for later projects. It can be used to promote your art or business. Authors use it to showcase images that bring readers deeper into the life they lead, without getting too personal.

It is not as social as most of social media. You search and pin web images to boards, organizing the haphazardly. You can’t rearrange the order, or, at least, I haven’t found a way to do this yet. Please don’t tell me if you have, because I will waste days of my life reorganizing the thousands of pictures into some kind of picture book story that no one will understand there is meaning to the layout but myself.

Pinterest can and is being used as a learning tool. It’s not the front runner for teaching anyone anything, but it does provide and interesting format in which to view the information you’re seeking. Needless to say, there are people learning German, like me, all over pinterest, and there are educators.

My profile is based off a character from my newest novel. Several of the boards therein are geared toward writing and my life as an author. The format, overall, follows the structure of this blog. If you scroll through the boards, you’ll see some familiar names on the albums. Naturally, to expand my reach across the net and provide interconnected content, it all corresponds to the blog in some manner, like a secondary interface from which to view my commentary and thoughts in pictures. Learning German was included.

The search that I underwent to provide secondary content to augment what I write on the blog about learning German, yielded some lessons, tips, tricks, graphics, culture, and images of Germany. It’s an amazing resource, in fact. Sort of like an online version of flash cards. You can scroll through and be visually reminded of vocabulary. There is even help with the grammar, which can be pretty tough at times. It’s simply not clear, and there are many instances when rules don’t apply. The duolingo app does a poor job of explaining any of it, which I have mentioned before. If they could have a short reading before each lesson that deals with grammar, something that could be referred to, but doesn’t load again once the section is complete, it would be a really powerful tool. Totally understandable that it doesn’t exist. Who is going to write all that content? They provide learning for several languages, which means the format would have to be carried over all of those. The grammatical rules of all those languages all vary extensively. So there is no repeated information that can just be auto translated and moved over. That’s a lot of work. Considering the app is free, unless sponsors throw them a ton of money, that won’t happen any time soon. I love the app, regardless. It’s a great tool and has improved my skills immensely in a few short months.

So, do take the time to check out Pinterest for How-To’s and other things. It’s a life hack-boon! Now, if only they’d let you upload videos.

You can join me on pinterest and follow my Learning German Board for tips and culture about Germany, Germans (Deustche Bevölkerung) and Deustch.

Welcome back! So you want to learn German…

Still plugging along! My vocabulary is building, but I still feel that the basics aren’t all in there yet. German is tough for one reason: Grammar. I’m really getting stuck on cases. If Duolingo concentrated a bit more on the necessary vocabulary, questions and statements first and saved this for later in the lessons, I think the world would be a happier place. Or, better yet, the grammar lessons they don’t include should be included. Explain to us why the cases are this way and what those words mean. What’s wrong with a reading bit, and then practice? Whatever, it’s meant to be an app that supplements your learning from good resources, not the center piece. But, I have to admit, I think it’s really really effective thus far (despite being stuck for weeks on the cases–nominative and accusative, I won’t even touch dative until I have the other two down).

But, I digress. This post isn’t about the cases. I’ve already gone over that when I started with them in an earlier post. I want to discuss the idea that the German language is harsh. When I began the journey, this is all I heard. I still hear only this from people. It’s all they know, a stereotype that others have used for tired old comedy skits. The language when spoken by a native isn’t harsh or loud or gutter sounding, not to my ear. I hear the flourishes of some french influence and even a bit of Latin from the corners of the Roman Empire. There is English in there, and an influence from the North and North East (of Europe, loves). It’s lovely and eclectic. That said, once in a while, something pops up in the vocabulary of the day app I have that makes me go…oh, hell no, I ain’t saying that. And then I go look for an alternative word, because I am going to sound so silly saying may I have a bon-bon, when I am asking for a bit of candy…jeez, Louise! And in that case, there is no other word. I hope they know what candy is, or some kind, handsome, wonderful, native will take pity upon this sweet, innocent, American girl and tell me how to ask for a sweet without sounding like a snobby old French lady laying about in her satin covered bed clutching poodles to her feather draped breast (the room is all white, with sparkling chandeliers and a button headboard. Garrish gold fixtures…oh, gag). Speaking of stereotypes…

Recently, I came across a word in duolingo, like my beloved (beliebe?) Hasen. By no means is the word innocuous. You can say it with force and sound like you’re really angry about the lack of this item, or that the power in the utterance of such word adds a sinister meaning, but more importantly you’ll sound like you’re announcing the arrival of a nuclear waste created creature from the shores of Japan. Rasierer.

Ein Rasierer!

But don’t fear. The dude just wants a shave. Most men, even Germans, aren’t out to slit your throat and they certainly won’t demand you hand them the weapon of their demise as you watch them prepare for the day. He may have noticed the scruff upon your chin is growing in less than manly and should be scratched off before you’re laughed at in public for sparse beardedness. Or, perhaps, the gentleman noticed your legs are getting a bit fuzzy ladies (I’ve been told another stereotype about Europeans that totally negates that possibility). There are lots of uses for the word that it’s pronunciation (Rah-tseer-ah) should not worry you.

As a Godzilla fan, it just fills me with delight and thus giggles and I can’t stop saying it. This is where the awkward comes in. Hase und Rasierer shouldn’t be uttered in the same sentence. Nein. For, if you do, surely you are expressing some sort of violence, Nephew Fred or Fatal Attraction style, that leaves us wondering at your sanity.

Day #152, So you want to learn German…

The German people have not yet lodged a protest against my horrible abuse of their language. They seem to think I am one of them. So long as I keep my lip zipped and don’t wear Nike’s and Levi’s I think everything will continue fine. Sometimes I find it hard not to speak, especially when a hare lopes down the dirt lane of the garden–there is nothing more satisfying than shouting HASE! EIN HASE! as if the yeti just walked into the room.

When communicating, I still find it hard to decide the conjugation of the pronoun and tend to make some odd sound at the end which I hope they will mistake as a speech impediment and not realize I am an American English speaker instead. (Note to self: shout Ich Liebe Fußball to throw them off my scent.)

My work with nominative pronouns is well underway and the code they appear to work under is cracking. I’ll have them mastered in no time and soon, they won’t be able to tell me apart from their neighbor. The bastards are tricky though…(the pronouns, not the Germans–though they might be–I have yet to determine.)

Ein Hase!!! Ein Hase!!!

It’s that time again! So you want to learn German – So dass Sie wollen Deutsch lernen!

Remember way back when that guest blogger Victor Anibal Rodriguez went on about the articles Die, Der and Das giving him trouble? Oh, my god…it gets worse! Nominative Pronouns and more articles…

German Cases – Or as I call it, the case for going crazy at 40, because I decided it was a good idea to learn German.

But, never fear! Your intrepid and borderline genius (the iq results were “gifted” at a score of 145) author is forging ahead. These things are definitely hard, but I’ve only been working on them for a few days now. German vocabulary is still sticking in my brain, like water to a sponge. I’m able to form sentences, very simple ones, from combining what I have already learned. Ihre Augen sind blau – Your eyes are blue. Using the pronoun I am learning – still confused about Ihr (you) switching between her (Ihr) and your (Ihre) and you (Ihr), but I am confident that it will become clear. (Just in the event it doesn’t, which one of you lovely German men would like to help a girl out? I was once told by, Frenchman and Philadelphia Ochestra Conductor, Charles Dutoit that the best way to learn a language is with a boyfriend, and I couldn’t agree more–it’s called investment.)

On an uptick, I now know exactly what Siri is trying to say when he goes Alles klar, blah blah blah. Alles klar literally translated means, all is clear — so, he’s saying understood or got it. The rest he jumbles out is this is what I found on the web for you…(blah blah blah). Strangely, Mr. Siri Deustche-Hosen doesn’t verstet mich as well as he thinks. This leads to some amusing moments of me baiting a computer device with name calling. But anyway, it’s further proof that programs like Duolingo and Rosetta Stone are effective (Duolingo is free, by the way, and available for your smart phone making it really easy to use).

Oh, well. At least I am still going forward with this. The other night, I watched Generation War (2013) and was really reinvigorated by being able to identify so much without the use of subtitles. I am able to pick up more vocabulary, or reinforce what I have loosely learned. Plus, it’s a great mini-series produced in Germany that tells the story from the German perspective, something we tend to forget in turning things to black in white: we were right and they were all monsters. Let’s not get into that here, because it’s been discussed in spades before and it’s not the place.

Moving on…I believe that my reading skill will probably be the first skill in which I will be fluent in German, then my listening comprehension and last my speech. I’m sure I will be a source of endless amusement for my German friends as I struggle to properly pronounce things in my American twang, but it is all in good fun (remember the squirrel video).

Anyway, I can’t wait until I can read this box so I know what I’m eating (Shokolade ist gut):

File this under you research bookmarks. I can’t emphasize enough the merits of doing great dialogue and nailing the time and characters in your novel through it. The subtlest of things can accomplish that. For OP-DEC, I used German. For Blue I referenced relevant events. Etymology dictionaries are available on line. Do we mess up? Sure. But, I’m going to post as many resources on this blog as I can to help all who care to read these posts with their research. That’s what I went to school to learn to do and I’m going to share that with my readers.